The Geography of Language

1
The Geography of Language
Die Geographie der Sprache

• La Geografía del Idioma

La Géographie de Langue
La Geografia di Lingua
2
Language Defined

• Organized system of spoken words by which people
  communicate with one another with mutual
  comprehension (Getis, 1985).
• Languages subtly gradate one to another.
  Dialects and other regional differences may
  eventually lead to incomprehensibility - a new
  language.
• Migration and Isolation explain how a single
  language can later become two or more.

3
Geographers Perspective on Language

• Language is an essential element of culture,
  possibly the most important medium by which
  culture is transmitted.
• Languages even structure the perceptions of
  their speakers. Attitudes, understandings, and
  responses are partly determined by the words
  available.
• Languages are a hallmark of cultural diversity
  with distinctive regional distributions.

4
Language Distribution indicates

• History and conquest
• Isolation or integration of cultures
• Migration of peoples
• Economic Domination of certain cultures
• Influence of wealth and technology
• Political Divisions (country boundaries)
• Physical geography barriers (mts., deserts)

5
Roots of Language
How to Write Down a Language?

6
Roots of Language
How to Write Down a Language?
Ideograms - Sumerian Chinese Egyptian
Japanese

7
Roots of Language
How to Write Down a Language?
Phonetic - Most languages, including Romance
languages Symbols (letters) represent sounds,
not ideas. A phonetic alphabet is the key
innovation.

8
Languages and Language Families
9
Language Divisions

• Language Families
• Language Branches
• Language Groups
• Languages
• Dialects
• Accents

10
Language Families

• a collection of individual languages with a
  common ancestor
• a family may be divided into several divisions or
  branches

11
(No Transcript)
12
Language Branches

• a group of languages that share a common origin
  but have evolved into different languages
• example Romance Branch - Indo-European Family
• French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanch

13
(No Transcript)
14
Language Groups

• Several individual languages within a language
  branch
• share a common origin in recent past
• few differences in grammar and vocabulary

15
Indo-European Language Branches
Non-Indo-European Language Families and Branches
16
Language Divisions for English
-- Indo-European -- Germanic -- West Germanic
-- English -- Northeastern -- Boston (Pak da
ka o-fa dere, pleese!)

• Language Families
• Language Branches
• Language Groups
• Languages
• Dialects
• Accents

17
Which languages share a common ancestor?
Some Indo-European Shared Words
Many Indo-European languages have common words
for snow, winter, spring for dog, horse, cow,
sheep bear but not camel, lion, elephant, or
tiger for beech, oak, pine, willow, but not palm
or banyan tree.
18
Indo-European Language Family (50 of World)

• Main Branches
• Germanic - Dutch, German
• Romance - Spanish, French
• Baltic-Slavic - Russian
• Indo-Iranian - Hindu, Bengali

19
Indo-European Language Family - Germanic Branch

• West Germanic
• English (514 million)
• German (128)
• Dutch (21)
• East Germanic
• Danish (5)
• Norwegian (5)
• Swedish (9)

20
Germanic Branch - English
Diffused throughout the world by hundreds of
years of British colonialism. Brought to New
World by British colonies in 1600s. Has become an
important global lingua franca.
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v41lZmGcRWHU
21
Development of English

• Germanic Tribes (Germany/Denmanrk)
• Jutes
• Angles
• Saxons
• Vikings (Norway)
• 9th - 11th Centuries
• Normans (French)
• Battle of Hastings, 1066
• French was official language for 150 years.

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vH3r9bOkYW9s
22
Development of English - Adopted Words

• Germanic Tribes (Germany/Denmark)
• kindergarten, angst, noodle, pretzel
• Vikings (Norway)
• take, they, reindeer, window
• Normans (French)
• renaissance, mansion, village, guardian

23
Indo-European Language Family - Romance Branch

• Like English these languages have been spread by
  Colonialism.
• Spanish (425 million)
• Portuguese (194) - most in Brazil

• French (129)
• Italian (62)
• Romanian (26)

24
Indo-European Family - Romance Branch
The Roman Empire, at its height in 2nd century
A.D., extinguished many local languages. After
the fall of Rome in the 5th century,
communication declined and languages evolved
again.

• Literature was all written in Latin until the
  13th and 14th centuries.
• Dante Alighieris 1314 Inferno written in vulgar
  latin (Florentine).

25
Sino-Tibetan Language Family (20)

• Branches
• Sinitic - Mandarin (1075),Cantonese (71),
• Austro-Thai (77) - Thai, Hmong
• Tibeto-Burman - Burmese (32)

Chinese languages based on 420 one syllable words
with meaning infered from context and tone.
26
Language Families of Africa
Fig. 5-14 The 1,000 or more languages of Africa
are divided among five main language families,
including Austronesian languages in Madagascar.
27
Afro-Asiatic Language Family

• Main Branch
• Semitic
• Arabic (256)
• Language of the Koran spread by Islamic Faith
  and Islamic (Ottoman) Empires
• Hebrew (5)
• Language of the old Testament (with Aramaic)
  completely revived from extinction in Israel,
  1948.

28
Niger-Congo Difffusion

• proto-Bantu peoples originated in
  Cameroon-Nigeria
• They spread throughout southern Africa AD 1 -
  1000
• Bantu peoples were agriculturalists who used
  metal tools
• Khoisan peoples were hunter-gatherers and were
  no match for the Bantu.
• Pygmies adopted Bantu tongue and retreated to
  forest
• Hottentots and Bushmen retained the clicks of
  Khoisan languages

29
LanguageComplexity
In Nigeria ethnic conflict between southern Ibos
and western Yoruba led the government to move
the capital to a more neutral central location
(Abuja). Many other ethnic battles rage
continuously. In Switzerland, four official
languages, a history of peace and tolerance, and
a political system that puts power in the hands
of local leaders ensure peace.
Nigeria has more than 200 individual languages!
30
Key Terms
PIDGIN - a form of speech that adopts simplified
grammar and limited vocabulary from a lingua
franca, used for communication between speakers
of two different languages.
Examples include Hawaiian Pidgin and the creoles
of West Africa that resulted from the slave trade.
No eat da candy, Bruddah, it's pilau. Da thing
wen fall on da ground.
31
Give us da food we need fo today an every
day.Hemmo our shame, an let us goFo all da kine
bad stuff we do to you,Jalike us guys let da
odda guys go awready,And we no stay huhu wit
demFo all da kine bad stuff dey do to us.No let
us get chance fo do bad kine stuff,But take us
outa dea, so da Bad Guy no can hurt us.Cuz you
our King.You get da real power,An you stay
awesome foeva.Dass it! Matthew 69-13 The
Lords Prayer - Taken from Da Jesus Book, a
twelve year effort by 6 linguists to translate
the New Testament into Hawaiian Pidgin, published
2001
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vf9_V5BXaXJc
32
Key Terms
CREOLE - a language that results from the mixing
of a colonizers language with an indigenous
language. Often they are pidgins.
Can you guess which colonizing language is the
base for each of the following creole examples?
New Orleans French Quarter
a. mo pe aste sa bananb. de bin alde luk dat big
tric. a waka go a wosud. olmaan i kas-im
cheke. li pote sa bay mof. ja fruher wir
bleibeng. dis smol swain i bin go fo maket
I am buying the bananathey always looked for a
big treehe walked homethe old man is cashing a
checkhe brought that for meYes at first we
remainedthis little pig went to market
33
Key Terms
CREOLE - a language that results from the mixing
of a colonizers language with an indigenous
language. Often they are pidgins
Can you guess which colonizing language is the
base for each of the following creole examples?
New Orleans French Quarter
a. mo pe aste sa bananb. de bin alde luk dat big
tric. a waka go a wosud. olmaan i kas-im
cheke. li pote sa bay mof. ja fruher wir
bleibeng. dis smol swain i bin go fo maket
French based Seychelles Creole English based
Roper River Creole English based SaranEnglish
based Cape York Creole French based
GuyanaisGerman based Papua New Guinea Pidgin
German English based Cameroon Pidgin
34
Key Terms
DIALECT - a regional variety of a language
distinguished by pronunciation, spelling, and
vocabulary. Social Dialects - can denote social
class and standing. Vernacular Dialects - the
common, slang, speech of a region.
Sounds Familiar - English Dialects Website
Common American Slang
MeaningIs he real or genuine? Thats
remarkable!Down by the stream (creek)freeloader
welfare dragon flydiapers
Term Is he fair dinkum? Why I declare!Down by
the crickbludger mosquito hawknappies
LocationAustraliaDeep South (U.S.)Middle
Atlantic StatesAustraliaSouth (U.S.)Britain
Brit. Colonies
35
Key Terms
ISOLATED LANGUAGE - a language that is not
related to any other languages and thus not
connected to any language families. Examples
include Basque and Korean.
Basque Spain
36
Language and the Environment(Linguistic Ecology)
Mt Cook, New Zealand
TOPONYM - a place name. These are language on
the land, reflecting past inhabitants and their
relation to the land.
Cook Islands, Polynesia
Devils Tower, WY
Badwater, Death Valley
37
Endangered Languages
As recently as 3,000 years ago, there were 10,000
to 15,000 languages in the world. Now about 6000
left. Of those, 1/2 will be gone by the year 2100
and all but 500 of the rest will be
endangered. More than 90 percent of the languages
in existence today will be extinct or threatened
in little more than a century if current trends
continue.

38
(No Transcript)
39
Endangered Languages
Why are they disappearing? Globalization Migrat
ion (Urbanization) Economic Development -
Lingua Francas Media Internet (Requires
Arabic Character Set) Lingua Franca - a
language used for trade by two people who speak
different native tongues.

40
Worlds Top 10 Languages

• Mandarin Chinese 726 Million
• English 427 Million
• Spanish 266 Million
• Hindi 182 Million
• Arabic 181 Million
• Portuguese 165 Million
• Bengali 162 Million
• Russian 158 Million
• Japanese 124 Million
• German 121 Million

41
English Speaking Countries
42
Interesting Facts about the English Language

• English is spoken as a first language by 427
  million
• English is spoken as a second language by another
  350 million
• English is the most widely taught language in
  over 100 countries
• In 70 countries English has official status
• more than any other language

43
Internet Hosts
Fig. 5-1-1 A large proportion of the worlds
internet users and hosts are in the developed
countries of North America and western Europe.
44
Internet Hosts, by Language
Fig 5-1-1a The large majority of internet hosts
in 1999 used English, Chinese, Japanese, or
European languages.
45

• Key Points
• Language is a fundamental element of cultural
  identity.
• Languages diverge via migration and isolation.
• Small languages are disappearing as a result of
  globalization.
• Languages that share a common ancestor belong to
  the same family.
• Language diversity is a source of political
  conflict in the world.

McDonalds, Israel